1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to decision-making processes for securing access to limited resources.
2. Description of Related Art
The advent of electronic computational devices has seen a related application of that technology to the field of resource-related problem-solving and decision-making. In the field of strategic planning, there exist methods for optimizing the use of resources across an organization in the form of resource leveling. In the field of telecommunications, there exist methods for “monitoring the resources of a telecommunications network, including performing functions such as initial network planning, frequency allocation, predetermined traffic routing to support load balancing, cryptographic key distribution authorization, configuration management, fault management, security management, performance management, and accounting management.” (ATIS Telecom Glossary 2000, T1.523-2001). The field of traffic engineering is similarly interested in the management of traffic flow along a transportation network in a safe and efficient fashion. In the field of natural resources and particularly in the area of water resource management, resource-related analysis and management tools can be divided into several general categories. Many of these same general categories exist in different embodiments within other fields of resource management including resource forecasting tools for forecasting the availability of supplies, flow characterization and distribution analysis tools for describing flows and pressures through a delivery network, system control and data acquisition systems for monitoring and controlling the flow of a resource within a delivery system, stakeholder economic analysis tools for assisting in negotiating resource use, financial analysis tools for determining costs related to resource acquisition and management, geographic information systems to view, store and analyze resource data from a geographic perspective, and integrated resource planning tools that incorporate a variety of operational inputs in an attempt to produce some optimal use of resources. Some of these tools include multiple stakeholder evaluations and some economic analysis. A few produce theoretical optimal allocation schemes based on certain market assumptions.
Such resource management tools are seeing increased use as a means to manage and optimize the use of resources. However, in the face of decreasing supplies and increasingly limited options for obtaining needed resources, there is a developing and obvious need for systems answering the question “What is preventing delivery of the resource, to what extent, and how do we best release the supply?” in a clear methodical fashion.
Some of the embodiments of the tools above and the regular exercise of engineering practice provide precursory information that would lend itself to formulating a systematic plan, but no current method applies this question and provides a solution as part of a formalized, generally extensible, systematic and methodically applied problem-solving technique generally applicable to resource supply and demand problems.